Slowik: Riverdale library open again after 4-month closure, but money woes and finger-pointing continue

Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown

A sign requesting donations is shown in the darkened interior of the Riverdale Public Library prior to a board meeting the evening of Monday, April 9, 2018. The library recently closed for nearly four months and laid off its five remaining employees due to a lack of funding.

A sign requesting donations is shown in the darkened interior of the Riverdale Public Library prior to a board meeting the evening of Monday, April 9, 2018. The library recently closed for nearly four months and laid off its five remaining employees due to a lack of funding. (Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown)

There’s some finger-pointing and blaming going on in Riverdale about why the town’s public library shut its doors for nearly four months.

The mayor and some residents accuse library officials of fiscal irresponsibility. Library officials say they’re doing their best and accuse the mayor of not doing enough to attract businesses that would help generate tax revenue to sustain operations.

Mayor Lawrence Jackson says consolidating the separate library district with the village would streamline operations and reduce costs.

Library Director Katrina Harris said Jackson’s consolidation push is a ploy to seize control of the library, its land and building at 208 W. 144th St. in the center of town.

Harris told me in 2016, Jackson proposed moving the library to a dilapidated former resource center on the edge of town at 222 E. 135th Place. She said she presented Jackson’s proposal to the library board, which rejected it.

“We’re in the town square,” Harris said. “That would be a shame for the community to lose that.”

Monday night, I attended the first public meeting in nearly six months of the Riverdale Public Library District Board. About 15 people were in the audience. The board met in January but denied public access in apparent violation of the Open Meetings Act.

The library board’s seven trustees all were elected to six-year terms in either 2017, 2015 or 2013. Riverdale is a community of about 13,000.

Some residents on Monday sought answers about why the library shut its doors and the board canceled meetings between November and February. The library is now open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

“Where did you get the funds to reopen?” asked resident Marshneil Gay, a retired postmaster. “How long ago did you find out that revenue was decreasing, and what steps were taken to counter that?”

Brett Shelton, the library’s assistant director, said the library has cut its staff to five positions from 20 in 2008.

“The problem is the lack of economic development in the Riverdale area,” said Noreen Lau, an accountant who does the library’s books. “People can’t pay taxes.”

I asked Harris for copies of the library’s recent budget and tax levy ordinances, and Shelton provided them.

The current budget, approved by the board in September, shows balanced revenues and expenditures of $756,000. The levy, approved by the board in October, set the amount to be collected in property taxes at $691,000.

Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown

Officials with the village and public library in Riverdale are pointing fingers at one another over a financial crisis that caused the town's library to close for nearly four months.

Officials with the village and public library in Riverdale are pointing fingers at one another over a financial crisis that caused the town's library to close for nearly four months. (Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown)

In recent years, tax collections have fallen short of the levy due to foreclosures, reductions through appeals and other reasons, Lau said.

“What actually did come in was a couple hundred thousand dollars short of that,” she said.

Riverdale’s biggest tax-revenue generator is a steel mill that opened in 1910 as Acme Steel, Shelton said. The mill still operates at 13500 S. Perry Ave. and is now owned by ArcelorMittal.

As the mill went through ownership changes and bankruptcies, the library district had to refund some of the property tax money collected in past years after the property’s assessment was retroactively lowered, Shelton said.

“We had no way to plan for that,” Shelton said. “We’re down about $50,000 now. We’re open for as long as the money lasts. If it runs out, we’ll close down again.”

Harris told me none of the library’s five employees were paid during the nearly four-month closure. She and other remaining library employees haven’t had raises in eight years, she said.

“We all went on unemployment,” she said. “I have a family of six, and $800 a month doesn’t go very far. It was difficult.”

Library board members, who are not paid, asked residents what solutions they could suggest.

“We’re very interested in what the public has to offer,” said Judy Wallace, board treasurer. “We all live here. I know very well what’s going on in this village. I’ve lived here for 33 years. We’re not holding anything back.”

Some in the audience asked about applying for grants.

“We don’t have enough money to get grants because we don’t have matching funds,” Shelton said.

Other suggestions included recruiting volunteers to organize a book club and supervise other programs and soliciting sponsorships from local businesses. Board members responded by describing challenges to each suggestion, including ineligibility of some people to serve as volunteers.

“I think this is a good thing that’s happening here,” said Maurice Roberts, library board vice president. “I’m a bill collector. I know when there’s money and when there’s not. The last thing we want to see as a board is a closed sign.”

Community members present Monday included Byron Stanley, vice president of the Riverdale Park District Board of Commissioners; Deyon Dean, former Riverdale mayor; and Joseph Marjan, senior advisor to Jackson’s political campaign.

“I think it’s going to take the people of this town to work together instead of pointing fingers,” Lau said.

Some in the audience pressed library officials about the concept of consolidation. Library officials said the village’s finances are nearly as challenged as the library district’s.

“The idea of merging wasn’t going to help us,” Shelton said.

After library officials shared their financial information with me, I reached out to Jackson to ask about the consolidation push and the village’s economic development efforts.

“The lack of a commercial tax base is a regional problem and is not exclusive to just Riverdale,” Jackson replied in an email. “Every other governmental entity has managed to keep its doors open and operations going with a declining tax base, except for the Riverdale Library District.”

The library has too many employees on the payroll, lacks transparency and is disengaged with the community, Jackson wrote.

“As mayor, and for the continuity of community services, I proposed a merger of the Riverdale Library District with the village of Riverdale. The library administration brazenly rejected the offer.”

I asked Jackson about the village’s interest in the library property and the assertion by Harris, the library director, that he proposed moving the library in 2016.

“There have been no plans to move the library from its current location, whether to the resource center or somewhere else and there is no interest in the library building that I am aware of,” Jackson replied.

“I would never entertain the idea of discontinuing the village’s library,” the mayor added. “However, the fact remains that the shuttered Riverdale Library, as currently structured, is failing our community and something must change.”

I searched archived minutes of the Riverdale Public Library District’s meetings from 2016 and found no record of public discussion about moving the library’s location. The library board has canceled about half its monthly meetings in the last two years.

Land acquisition negotiations are exempt from the Open Meetings Act, and the board would have been allowed to discuss the proposal in executive session.

I asked Harris if she could produce any documentation substantiating that she discussed Jackson’s relocation proposal with the library board. Harris provided minutes of a special meeting that she said were inadvertently unpublished, but would be added to the library’s website.

The minutes Harris provided of the Jan. 3, 2017, special meeting included mention of the mayor’s merger and relocation proposal.

After Harris provided the minutes late Wednesday, I sent them to Jackson and asked for his reaction but I did not immediately receive a response.